I finally found great buttons over the weekend, and was able to do the last finishing on a baby project that’s been sitting for almost a month now. Wonderful little newborn wrap sweater, with matching Saartje bootees.
Great buttons (dark grey with flowers) in two sizes for the sweater and shoes.
And such teeny tiny little shoes. Are baby feet really this small?
This yarn was a treat to work with – MadelynTosh sock yarn. So soft and such pretty colors. I don’t know if these are particularly long or short stretches for each color, but it managed to avoid that stripey, patchy look that variegated yarn often gets when it knits up. I’m so glad I have another project’s worth of this to work on!
Category: knitting
Gift knitting
My knitting friend Suzanne is having her second child in a few weeks (a little boy this time!) and so I knit up a little leafy hat and mitten set to go with this sheep romper from Janie and Jack.
Fun little patterns, and hopefully all three items fit at the same time. 🙂
The first “girl” knitting project
A little aqua, lacy flower hat for a newborn, being modeled by a grapefruit. (A melon would have been better sizing, but the grapefruit was what I had in the fridge.)
Such a fun, satisfying, excellent knit.
I had to go and find new projects for my ravelry queue – all of the baby sweaters I had were for boys. It is so fun to be able to go and pick out girl patterns, too. A whole new world of knitting potential. And while that blocks, here’s the start on the new Garter Stitch Baby Kimono.
It’s just a lot of knit stitch for many more centimeters, especially knit in sock yarn. But the yarn is amazing. (My first time knitting with Madelyn Tosh, and now I see what all the fuss is about – so soft, and such subtle, sophisticated color variation. It’s lovely to work with.)
Protected: Some knitting on Sunday morning
Baby knitting
Out of nowhere two weeks ago, it was suddenly urgently time to start knitting for the baby. And so one extra pair of sock yarn from the closet, and two weeks later, I have these cute little booties.
They aren’t really that florescent – I made the mistake of trying to take photos on a sunny day, and the camera couldn’t deal with the low, bright light. A side view, moderately more accurate colors:
And a pair of little socks!
I also knit a heart – it’s supposed to be stuffed and hung with ribbon on a cabinet door to decorate for Valentine’s Day, along with a whole set of other ones, but now I’ve lost steam.
Hurray for flighty little quick projects. I think the reason for all the small knitting has actually had very little to do with the baby and a lot to do with work. I’m in the middle of a huge, long, complicated first draft, with several more weeks of work to go. It’s daunting. So in the little gaps and pieces of the evening, a quick baby knit to cheer me up and feel like progress. 🙂
Flashback: Finally done the striped sweater
[Catching up in Fall 2012 on the missing posts from Fall 2011.]
I finally finished the striped sweater, and did a photo shoot so that I could post the finished result to Ravelry. Verdict: it fits, and I genuinely like the back, but the stripes plus shawl collar on the front is way too loud, even for a two year old. I really doubt that this will get worn. But it’s done! So, hurrah.
Flashback: More acorn hat photos
[Catching up in Fall 2012 on the missing posts from Fall 2011.]
Outside in the damp on a day cool enough for the hat, but warm enough not to need a jacket.
I love the gnomish shape of it – I miss the cuteness of last year’s little blue gnome jacket. This isn’t quite the same but still strikes the same chord.
Good detail of the cables, too.
Meanwhile, my additional yarn for the cuffs of the striped sweater came, and as feared, it’s a really different blue. I debated for all of two minutes before ripping out all the cuffs to reknit in the new color, so that they at least match each other if not the sweater stripes.
I can’t decide if I’m losing enthusiasm for this project. I’m still enjoying the process, but increasingly less confident in the results.
Flashback: Acorn hat
[Catching up in Fall 2012 on the missing posts from Fall 2011.]
The acorn hat is done!!
To call it a bit ad hoc is an understatement. I couldn’t find a pattern that I liked on ravelry, so I ended up improvising a roll-brim bottom with a woven cable top. The decreases and cables were a little bit crazy, but I opted for a goal of “effective” decreases instead of “perfect” cable management and I’m really, really happy with the result. Fits well, too!
I wanted a slightly pixie top, and this fits the bill perfectly. Also good ear coverage – important since he’s outside so much.
Protected: Blocking, mid-project
New project
This is the knitting equivalent of having eyes bigger than your stomach, but I started a sweater for me to use up stash yarn! It’s top-down, stockinette, super simple, all the things that could lead to a sweater than I’ll actually wear this decade. So here’s to wild optimism, I suppose. 🙂 Now we just have to hope for speedy fingers (since it’s a DK yarn) and plentiful knitting time.
The gauge swatch – based on this I had to multiply all the pattern parameters by 1.375, which then required changing proportions and shaping slightly so that they’d fit the 4-stitch multipliers. Yikes. Hope I did all of that properly.
As of the end of the weekend, I’m 20 rows in, so while modest it’s still at least SOME sort of accomplishment.